we have 300 of these jurisdictions. the governor of new york is proposing that new york become a sanctuary state. san francisco is proposing funding, legal -- funding legal fees for illegal -- undocumented workers. with that, i think i have spoken long enough and we will have each speaker speak 10 to 12 minutes and then we will have questions and answers. represents the anti-immigration city side. she is the policy director for the center of immigration studies. williams stock is with the immigrant lawyers association. he represents the process sure a city side to with that, jessica and then william and then you

get a one-minute rejoinder. jessica: thank you so much. thank you all for coming today. definitely a hot topic. i'm pleased to have this opportunity to visit these issues in a format that's going to promote discussion and give explore and some of the details, the arguments. sanctuary cities, yes or no? the answer is very clearly no. i will be telling you why. merely because they are illegal and because they create public safety problems. don't help inthey establishing trust between the immigrant community and authority. before i end, i also will tell you what i think should be done about them.

we've heard that sanctuary policies are fine, that they are even necessary. and the reasons that people give for supporting or promoting century policies are basically one of two reasons. one positive, when negative. the positive reason that is often given is the so-called trust issue. we heard it said that, if local authorities cooperate with federal immigration authorities, then immigrants in the community, especially illegal immigrants, will be afraid to report crimes because they're afraid they will then be turned over for deportation. this is something that authorities genuinely should be concerned about, if it were true. but it turns out that it is not. and i will be delving into that later. the other main reason that you're going to hear about in favor of century cities is a negative reason. it's what i call the "you can't make me" argument, that the federal government can't force states to enforce federal law or

make them spend their money on it or force local officers to become immigration officers. please don't hold up either upon examination. cooperation between local authorities and federal authorities is clearly within the constitutional framework of immigration enforcement. son going to address these arguments. but first, i want to give you the three reasons why i think federal government must address the problem of sanctuary. first of all, sanctuary policies obstruct legitimate enforcement of immigration laws and they are illegal. it is important to remember that immigration law is not some obsolete relic of a law that is not worth enforcement. it are texts job opportunities for americans and for illegal immigrants to especially those legal workers who'd don't have a college degree. their job prospects have not improved whatsoever the last 10 years. not even close to improving.

and these are the americans illegal workers who are hurt the most by illegal immigration. and that needs to be more of a congress -- a consortium for our policymakers. also, immigration law protects resources for education, health and welfare but should be reserved only for citizens of people who are here legally. illegal immigration is a net fiscal drain on the federal budget to the tune of about $50 billion a year. that's not insignificant. most of what delay, immigration law enforcement protects the security and safety of our communities. and that's because the main target for deportation is and always has been that small fraction of the illegal alien population who are criminals and causing problems in our communities. since ice doesn't patrol the streets looking for people to arrest, it depends on local enforcement to identify which

illegal aliens are causing the problems. and that turns out to be who the sanctuary cities and of protecting, the criminal alien mosthat's because the problematic and most common century policy is one that tells law enforcement agencies not to incorporate when the feds or try to remove someone in has been arrested for a state and local crime. being removedple by ice nowadays have a criminal conviction. that is who ice is targeting and that is who was protected by century policies. congress thought it was so important for for me -- for that itrcement agencies made century cities illegal. no local government and have a policy that in any way restricts local officials from communicating or exchanging information with the feds, which is exactly what the most egregious centuries do and that is the exact policy that was in place when the san francisco sheriff's office released the

smiley.later killed no one may harbor aliens or shield them from detection by federal authority. so any place that has a century policy that goes against these laws is not only putting the people of its community at risk, but they are putting themselves at risk for consequences from the federal government. aside from the legal and constitutional issues, century policies cause public safety problems. this is because the practical effect is that they end up releasing criminal aliens back to the community who should be deported. starting in january 2014, when the number of sanctuaries started to proliferate, ice started keeping track of exactly which jurisdictions were not cooperating. the number of detainers that were rejected because of sanctuary policy, who the subjects of the detainers were and what happened after they were released. i was able to obtain a copy of

this report through a foia request and we posted it on our website and this is what i found. over that eight-month period, sanctuary cities released 8000 individuals were the subject of an ice detainer. by june 2015, it was 17,000. 63% of those released already had a serious criminal record, meaning a felony or violent misdemeanor. 23%in eight months, already had already re-offended just within those eight months. and they were charged with 4000 new crimes. of those, ice was able to only rearrest 40% and the rest are at large. the sanctuary supporters say they have no responsibility for the problems created by these releases and that i should just go arrest them. goand that ice should just and arrest them. this is easier said than done. dealer, whererug

would you rather do it? arrestedy are already theirer charges or in communities? it is upsetting to the public and create this climate of fear that the immigrant advocates say that they are opposed to. that they understand and apply the public safety problems created by the sanctuaries, but nevertheless, shares have no choice but to let the criminal aliens go. they say that because courts ruled that holding the alien is a civil rights issue. i estimate that about 250 of the 300 centuries is this now erroneously maintain that they cannot sold -- hold someone for ice.

ice does provide warrants. administrative warrants. they are not required to provide criminal warrants. ice has offered to pay any additional costs for holding the alien and has established rapid response teams to get officers there quickly to minimize the cost of low jurisdictions. but there are still some of these places that will not cooperate on any terms. cook county, illinois, san francisco, contra costa, and santa clara counties in california and king county in washington state still do not cooperate, even with all of the accommodations that ice has offered them. and the reason is not because of legal issues are caused issues. the reason they have the sanctuary policy is because they want to obstruct immigration enforcement because they disagree with it. but the federal government can't just look the other way at this obstruction. the century policies are illegal and they are dangerous. to top it off, they don't even

accomplish the goal that they allege is their main reason for having them, which is to encourage immigrants to report crimes antitrust authorities. first, there is no evidence whatsoever that immigrants report crimes any less than others. is aeporting crimes problem in a lot of places and the reasons are complex. but as i mentioned in the report that we are putting out today, which is available on our website, the national level data on crime reporting show no signs of less reporting of crime by immigrants. the data from a lot of law-enforcement agencies i have looked at shows no sign of a decline in crime reporting by immigrants when there is robust cooperation between the police and ice. including a very detailed study not done far from here in prince county virginia a few months ago. there have been some surveys

done and reported in the academic literature. they found that, when immigrants are asked if they did not report crimes and what was the reason, what they say is that it's because they faced a language barrier. the second reason was at they don't know how to report the crime or they didn't think what happened to them was a crime. not because they were afraid of eating turned over to ice. the extent that there are access problems to police services, the local police should adopt tried and true community policing policies that .irectly address those problems higher officers that speak the language of the community. have anonymous tip lines. have nonuniform personnel taking crime reports. do outreach to the community to build ties. and most importantly, what they need to do is get the message innocent victims and

witnesses are never targets for immigration enforcement. that is the message that all of these groups should be spreading. instead of the message that immigrants have something to fear from police. none of the community policing tactics i mentioned involved suppressing immigration enforcement. what can be done by the trump administration? it's reasonable to expect this will be a focus for the new administration because the president-elect has said so and he clearly took the heart the stories of the americans who've lost family members to crimes by illegal aliens. addressing the sanctuaries has to be an important part of the trump administration's plan to boost the deportations of the estimated 2 million criminal aliens who are now in the country. again, 90% of the jurisdictions are cooperating. it's a 10% who are not. they happened to be in a place -- in places where they happen to be a lot of criminal aliens.

the administration needs to address the legal concerns of the jurisdictions of the 20050i mentioned. one step is to issue administrative warrants where requested. this is not a big of her ice. they are going to have to do it anyway in the processing for anyone for deportation. so they might as well do it when they issue a detainer and meet those long for some agencies halfway. help them out. this is a solution that has allowed suffolk county on long island, which is a big community, has a lot of rooms with illegal alien crime. -- has a lot of problems with illegal alien crime. their century problems -- sanctuary policy last week. the next thing i would do -- they had to.

the next thing i would do if i were in the trump administration is begin to publish a weekly list of all of the criminal aliens released by sanctuaries. i would call it the knees list come after dennis mccann, who was killed by an illegal alien drunk driver in chicago 2011. was one ofl alien the first people released under the cook county century policy, which is one of the most extreme and country. and he has never faced charges because he fled to mexico because cook county released him because of the newly adopted ordinances that that they will not turn anyone over to ice or hold anyone for ice. that kind of a list would give you folks here at the press club something to write about on a weekly basis. no question. in addition, the new administration should continue the process that has already begun to cut federal funds to the centuries.

justice hasnt of recently determined that certain century policies are inconsistent with federal law. and if you are not complying with federal law, then you cannot receive federal funds. jurisdictions0 that were identified by the department of justice as having a policy that is a problem received a $96 million this year that they might end up having to pay back if they don't change their policies by june 30, 2017. this is not unconstitutional coercion as some have claimed. it is proper for the federal government to do this if local governments are violating federal law. and it's been done before. and i think, even after taking meeting the jurisdictions have way on the legal concerns about warrants and withholding federal funds to the noncompliant jurisdictions, there is still going to be some

diehard century jurisdictions that are going to cling to their policy. if that's the case, of course, the federal government should look at withholding other kinds of grants. but if they persist with these policies, the government is going to have to look at possible litigation to enjoin some of the sanctuary policies or possibly even prosecution in certain circumstances and , because this continued a egregious obstruction of ice is going to cause more horrific consequences , as we've already seen have happened. i have to say, if i were a police chief or sheriff watching what is happening, i certainly would not want to be on the other end of that kind of a case, on the other end of a microphone like this, trying to explain to the family members of the victims or to the citizens

not doommunity why i did everything possible to get that person turned over to ice. i certainly would not want to deal with the potential legal liability either. tos going to be interesting watch this play out over the coming year. i think right now some of these diehard sanctuary jurisdictions are playing a game of chicken with the federal government. but i'm not sure how long the public is going to tolerate it and the federal government should not tolerate it either. thank you very much. on, we noticed a lot of people in the back. we are very lonely up here. we please come up? please? there are plenty of seats up here. and with that, william stock. he will speak for an equal amount of time and that she will

have a chance for a rejoinder. william: thank you very much. it is a pleasure to be here with you today. sanctuary cities, the phrase is made to make you think of officials send between authorities and immigrants who are subject to removal, somehow shielding them from removal and in spite of their unlawful status. that in over 300 jurisdictions, there is no policy that instructs officers to actively thwart the enforcement of immigration law. what we are talking about then is policies that instructs state officials to stand aside from the federal agencies that are responsible for enforcing immigration laws. so let federal law enforcement do their job of enforcing jet -- federal laws, while the state law enforcement resources remain focused on enforcing laws in their communities and keeping their communities safe. the question before us today is not whether or not state and federal law enforcement is

allowed to assist with immigration law enforcement. rarely, they are, if they wish to be so. the question is whether state and local law enforcement can be compelled to provide assistance in federal law enforcement matters in a civil immigration law enforcement. in my remarks today, i'd like to briefly address how this current question of immigration enforcement relates to past disputes between states and the federal government over how much the sedate's -- the states are supposed to be involved in enforcement of federal law. you have to go back all the way into the founding of the republic when you find a one of the first argument between the states and the federal government was how much states in the north had to cooperate with states in the south who were trying to return fugitive slaves. when african-americans would be

kidnapped out of new york or massachusetts or other states, what assistance did those states' legal systems have to provide the southern agents who were coming up to capture individuals and take them back? that was the first set of issues that the supreme court had to decide. in fact, the state of pennsylvania was involved in a case where the state of pennsylvania cannot make it illegal for federal agents to be able to work under the fugitive slave act in the state of pennsylvania because of the suppressed -- the supremacy of federal law. but at the same time, they did not have to make their own state law enforcement resources available to help with that. fast-forward to prohibition. everybody remembers the 18th amendment to the constitution made it illegal to manufacture, distribute, sell alcohol in the united states. but the federal government did not have anywhere near it law-enforcement resources to enforce that throughout the united states. so states and cities were

passing laws that allow them to also concurrently enforce the 18th amendment. but cities and states also decided not to. forentire state of maryland the entire duration of prohibition never passed a law allowing the enforcement of that. of course, alcohol remained available on a much greater basis in the state of maryland than in other places. the city of new york had more places where you could get alcohol during prohibition than it had before prohibition. again, because city a local officials did not support the federal law and did not cooperate. and the federal government was not able to come tell them to do that. whether the about federal government should be allowed to compel a state or city to go along with its priority, i think we need to be careful to think that any

precedent that is set in the area of immigration law could be equally applied in other areas of law. so for example, the federal firearms act requires the registration of certain kinds of firearms, sawed-off shotguns, for example, that may be vertically little to possess under state law. but many of those weapons which were involved in terrible crimes are not registered properly under the federal regulations. so should there be a law that says no state shall get federal funding if they refuse to turn over to the alcohol tobacco and firearms any unregistered federal weapon that their police encounter? it's not very dissimilar to what happened in the brady act in 1993 when congress said that, because there wasn't a national background checking system, state law enforcement officials had to run a background check of any handgun purchaser. all the way to the supreme court in the prince versus united

states case, the supreme court said the federal government could not commandeer those local resources to enforce a federal purpose. and so that's an important about federal law enforcement is responsible for the enforcement of the immigration laws. if an individual comes into the united states and they do not have a proper status. if they have a proper status and they let it live laughs let it lapse and they commit a list of crimes, they are eligible for probable remover -- for proper removal. but a state law enforcement officer asked to hold onto that individual quality federal officer is coming to get them, while a federal officer is determining whether or not the person is subject to removal raises serious constitutional concerns because, while it is true that it may be a relatively

short period of time, it may be 48 hours or less -- in some cases it is not. and more importantly, the supreme court has already said that the diminished requirement of running a background check on a handgun purchaser is not something the federal government can compel the state to do. so to require them to hold and house and feed and transport someone who is a person -- this is not just a background check. this is keeping physical control of a person for a period of time goes well beyond what the supreme court has already said is not something that is allowed to be required by the federal government. so that we get to the question for remote -- removing funding as a sanction andrefusing to cooperate provide assistance to the federal government in this matter. the supreme court has already made that decision as well,

quite recently, in the case of obamacare, where justice roberts said that it was unlawful for the federal -- for the obamacare statute to threaten to remove medicare payments unless they adopted medicare expansion. in the same way, if a federal act were to say that states would be deprived of more than the directly relevant law enforcement grant, all right, grants, for example, that provide states assistance for the cost of housing persons who are undocumented who commit crimes, to go beyond that, to threaten federal funding more broadly would be, again, and unlawful coal, a violation of the 10th amendment. why are we here? we are here at least in part because we have allowed immigration to be different from every other kind of law enforcement.

the city of philadelphia, where i am from, has a policy that has been labeled a century policy. our mayor has been quite clear that every other law enforcement agency that wants to take custody of someone in the philadelphia jail system can get a judicial warrant and produce that warrant. the montgomery county police can do it. the other federal law enforcement officials can do it. but ice believes it does not have to. they believe that they can rely on something called a myth administrative warrant, which is not a ward at all. if someone is to be taken into custody, it must be done upon a warrant proven by probable cause to an independent magistrate. none of those elements are necessarily required of an immigration detainer. detainer, ourion immigration officers will look

in a database or decide that someone is potentially subject to removal. maybe not even that there is probable cause at their subject to removal. they will then ask for the person to be detained. if the person is detained -- so it is a warrantless arrest, similar to when a police officer encounters someone driving around. they have to have a probable cause that a crime is being committed. but this is even a crime. it's is a civil violation of the immigration laws. so requiring these procedural protections is not about protecting criminals. requiring these procedural protections is about protecting lawful residents and american situations like in male state of pennsylvania, when the lackawanna county sheriff's department was served with an immigration detainer for a u.s. citizen who was then kept in detention for longer than 48

hours are cases for why these procedural protections are necessary. why is it not require that ice bring a person before a magistrate within a reasonable time, 48 hours according to the supreme court? why is that such a big requirement that the immigration service cannot meet but every other law enforcement in the united states somehow manages to? so i want to conclude with a story about community trust. because what our members tell us is that these kinds of issues are fundamental to the relationships that police in their communities are trying to set up with their broader communities of legal immigrants. and there may be undocumented immigrants who live within these communities of recent immigrants to the united states. but the community policing efforts are about establishing relationships. and as a practical matter, what

happens when local police become an meshed in the enforcement of immigration laws are cases like what one of our members reported from washington state. mirabella, just not her actual name, was arrested in a domestic violence incident. been a victim of domestic violence by her u.s. citizen husband. when the police came to the house because of this incident, she only speaks spanish and her husband was able to convince the police officers that she had been the aggressor. so she was arrested. she was taken into removal. she had no relief from removal. she was deported from the united states. so this is a situation where an individual who was the subject of a criminal investigation at a local level became enmeshed in

this deportation system. and this is what will happen. if you have a car which gets pulled over that has four people in it, it won't matter that there was only probable cause to stop the car because of what the driver was doing. everyone in the car may become subject to immigration enforcement. so these are the reason why we say that each community needs to be able to make its own decisions in these matters. there are communities that will decide to fully participate and cooperate with immigration enforcement. there are communities that will decide to partially do so. and there are communities that will decide to honor federal requests, to comply with federal law that is consists -- consistent with the constitution bogota further. so that is what we are asking should be able to continue. [applause]

vanessa: clearly, what we are to -- jessica nolan >> clearly what we are talking about is they are not just standing aside. they are standing between the federal government and an individual that they are trying to deport and who should be deported from this country. they are not the compelled to enforce immigration laws. asked to hand over an individual for a legitimate enforcement person -- purpose, just like every other law-enforcement agency does routinely. this analogy does apply. policee washington, d.c. hand over someone who was wanted by the state of california on a warrant, they are not in forcing california law. they are cooperating. and that is what ice is asking for.

and ice is really the only agency that is blocked in this way. and the other reason that we ofw that these issues constitutionality and costs are not really the purpose for century policies is because when i then offered to pay any costs to that agency for holding that individual, the sanctuaries still say no. ice has done everything it can to try to overcome these suppose it excuses for not cooperating and they still don't cooperate. why doesn't ice give criminal warrants? number one, there's not such thing. asks for ancy that criminal warrant with a detainer might as well ask to be -- to have it delivered by a blue it doesn'tause exist. it is a way to give themselves some cover. what this debate is really about when thets to decide

immigration laws will be enforced. our constitution clearly gives authority over immigration matters to congress. has laws that gives ice and says they need that sanctuary policies are illegal. so sanctuaries are substituting their judgment for the federal judgment and that is the problem. that is what is unconstitutional. william, you will be able to answer her unless you want the first question. william: i would be happy to take the first question. >> please identify who you are with. name and who you are with. >> [indiscernible] immigration. that, as clarify

immigration journalists in congress, we cover all sides. don't refer to people who support sanctuary cities as being pro-immigrants and we do to thoseid -- referred who allegedly have false documents as undocumented. question, as i understand, the colbert's and letters, which refer mainly to convicted felons knowave served their time that they will be deported, their families know that they no surprise,udit, that everybody knows at the end of their sentence, ice will come in and secure them. and for some reason, they say, no, we will not allow them to deport them and we will release

them. i don't know how you can defend not continuing with the sentence that is unique to illegal immigrants, that they are convicted felons. william: i think it is important to recognize that we support enforcement of immigration law, a people who are evicted of crimes that are listed as being resulting in deportation. the problem with the secured communities program is that it was not focused at the of the process. it was focused at the arrest part of the process. and someone who is arrested and charged with a crime or even worse, if you look at some of the statistics, they are compiling together a detainer requests that were refuse for people who were convicted, arrested or suspected of criminal activity.

so what we have seen in reportties, our members to us is that an individual will be tagged as a suspected gang member and then will be subject to a detainer order from immigration because they criminal authorities don't have anything to charge them with. let's usehey say, immigration instead and get this person out of our community. it's really using immigration law in lieu of criminal law. against someone they can't prove a case for. we saw this after 9/11 where individuals were rounded up with immigration violations and were flagged as suspected terrorists when there was no evidence of whether they were a terrorist or not they were detained or the immigration authority so that they could be interrogated, for example. >> go to the microphone, please.

-- gain theica: it is not prerogative of the state or local authorities to decide which aliens are subject to deportation. congress has given ice that authority to decide. we simply cannot substitute -- states and municipalities cannot decide which illegal aliens will be deported. it is simple enough their call. whether they are criminals or not. whether they are criminals or not. >> another question. cameron,e is steve center for immigration studies. both of yourw positions, if somebody is arrested for drunk driving or doing something and the local jurisdiction doesn't hold them secure communities show

this person is clearly illegal and their fingerprints mass, your position is we don't have to hold them. this person is unambiguously in the united states, immigration asked them to hold them and you say they have to be a violent fun that is. previously convicted. . how is that different from foreign -- from open borders? i think most of you can say, well, we don't want the police running people up, but would both of you say that person and thee deported jurisdiction should hold them even if they haven't asked killed someone or committed another serious crime? either one of you. william cowan so the first thing i would point out that the founders of this country understood that the physical detention of any person was the most coercive power that the government has. and it should only be exercised under the supervision of a

neutral magistrate. they enshrine the privilege of habeas corpus, being able to go in front of a judge in the constitution, that it could not be suspended, except in cases of invasion or civil war era so the we're talking about is requirements for physical detention of any person in the united states, that it need be done lawfully or one of those requirements is that any detention be done only upon probable cause shown to a neutral magistrate. when an immigration service officer requests the detention of someone who is suspected as through a immigrant fingerprint check, they don't have to prove that to anyone. that foreign national may not even be subject to any kind of post detention review of their status for weeks or months. court will decide

whether or not the constraints that they said were lawful on detention of people during the immigration process, whether those have been exceeded over the last 10 years since they made their first decision. because that coercive detention power is the power of the government that the founders most feared, they required that it be exercised within strict constitutional limits. that's why think cities that say immigration service, please get a warrant to show that this tensions subject to the are were upholding the fourth amended of the constitution. jessica: it is neither required under the law or practical. what we are talking about is people are getting arrested. it is discover they are here in illegally or potentially

deportable through a fingerprint match or through an interview in a jail. ice issues a detainer. that detainer has an indication that ice has probable cause to believe that this individual is deportable. that is not even the standard. the standard is articulable facts. there are no trappings of the criminal system. there are no magistrates available to provide the placing -- the blessing he is suggesting. congress has decided that ice needs articulable facts that the person is deportable and that the state are local law enforcement shall maintain individual for ice, just as they would do for any other law enforcement agency , up to 48 hours. usually, ice gets there much quicker than that. stay a local governments get

reimbursed partially further cost already through a federal woods program. again, we are talking about people who have already been sanctuarythat policies would rather release rather than have them be sent back to their home country where they can no longer prey on individuals in the community. [indiscernible] mexican american legal defense educational fund. you mentioned that this is not a criminal case. so i want to ask you why is it that we are holding the suspected, not to mention immigrant, inattention if this is a civil matter? and can you know any other instance of federal civil laws requiring people being detained before being given due process? jessica: sure.

again, it is not just that they are suspected of being here illegally. the ice officer has to have articulable facts and is stating that they have probable cause. often, the identity is matched through a fingerprint. so they know what they are doing. those are the individuals that are being released by the sanctuaries. and the reason that they need them held in custody is because ice can't be in every jail and every courthouse patrolling the streets, looking for criminal aliens. when they are notified that a criminal alien or a needle -- an illegal alien that they want to deport is in their custody, they are asking them to be held in custody in accordance with federal regulation and in accordance with the law that congress has written, which determines what that due process will be. >> accuracy in academia.

$50 billion drain. where does that number come from and what does it include? jessica: the $50 billion a year is the net drain on public coffers, the difference between what illegal aliens are estimated to have paid in taxes and fees and so on, minus what they are estimated to receive in welfare benefits, educational services, housing, health care and all the other array of publicly funded services that are made available to them. so it is a net cost. william: i would point out that you get that net cost by putting the costs that are attributable to u.s. citizen children onto foreign nationals. the revenues from the u.s. citizen children, as they grow

and become taxpayers on the u.s. citizen side. so there's cost when they are children, but as benefits when they grow up. does the lack of a definition of sanctuary cities [indiscernible] william: i think it is critical that we have some sort of understanding of what we are talking about when we label something centuries area there is no accepted legal definition of what a century city is. 17 -- 1373section policy can prohibit medication between state officers in the federal government with respect immigration. but it doesn't answer a further

question. does mayor jim kenney one philadelphia police officers spending time and resources finding out information about immigration status in the course of enforcing the law? so those we have to define. in 300 jurisdictions, you're going to find 300 different nations of how they cooperate or don't cooperate. so we don't have an idea. and century cities is a label that is applied to try and argue that these are cities who are somehow shielding immigrants when in fact, what they are doing is simple he requiring the federal government to do its job . jessica: there is a spectrum of century policies across the nation and it may mean different things to different people. but our definition of a century jurisdiction is any government that has a policy, practice, ordinance, rules or law that actively obstructs immigration

enforcement or shields illegal aliens from federal detection. and there is even a spectrum of policies within that. but i would disagree that there is no legal definition because, again, as we discussed 1373 does say that no government can in any way restrict medication. 1324 says no one may harbor or shield from detection criminal aliens. i agree that this is evolving, but i think we do have a standard and ice knows which jurisdictions are not cooperating. saying that cities should have a policy that is welcoming to immigrants. the issue is when it crosses the line into obstructing the legitimate enforcement of immigration laws. >> any other questions? if not, i think we owe both speakers a round of applause. [applause]

and we especially want to thank the audience here. you've been wonderful. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] jessica: we have copies of the report that is being released today up here.

>> more on sanctuary cities from political recently. cities across the country are standing firm against donald trump's pledge to crack down on them. drop has pledged that one of the top priorities for his first 100 days in office is to cancel all federal funding to sanctuary fores, an unspecific term jurisdictions that limit cooperation with law enforcement agents -- federal law enforcement agents. political identified not one city that is reconsidering its century policies on account of the presidential election. you can read more about that from politico. janet yellen holds a news conference to outline monetary policy actions following the to-day meeting with the federal open market committee. and at a possible

interest rate hike to be announced today. live tonight at 8:00, congressman keith ellison will outline his vision for the democratic party as he campaigns to become head of the democratic national committee. senator bernie sanders will also be at that event. democratic representative elect who willhnamoorthi, represent illinois eighth district in the new congress, spoke with c-span about his background and previous experience before winning the house seat in november of this year. >> tell us what you did before you one election. : you can sayoorthi

i'm in chicagoland. >> how many years have you been doing that? aja krishnamoorthi: from seven years. i've been the president of the company. the company has been around for a lot longer than a happier but i came in about seven years ago. >> why did you decide to run for a house seat? raja krishnamoorthi you know, it has to do with my personal story . unfortunately, when i was a very little child, my parents were part of the working poor. thanks to the generosity and goodwill of the people of the united states and this government, we were allowed to take advantage of certain programs, such as public housing and food stamps and so forth to survive. my parents were able to complete their studies and get a job income of all places,. , illinois. that is where they spent the next 40 years of --. pioria, illinois.

that is where they spent the next 20 years of their lives raising the family. running for congress was the next chapter eight and unfinished business for me, which is how to help others. >> where did you grow up? talk about your family heritage. : i was bornmoorthi in india. i came here when i was three months old. first, we resided in buffalo, new york, which is where we spent the for seven years of our time here in the united states. to peoria. bring? do you

raja krishnamoorthi many of the volunteers who: worked on my campaign came from there. also my values, middle-class, midwestern values. i believe are in much that people can disagree without being disagreeable. i grew up among republicans mostly in peoria at that time. you wouldn't know it talking to them because they did not advertise their political beliefs and everything they said. the conversations were very practical. democrats and republicans didn't throw bombs at each other. they kind of hashed things out. at the end of the day, they were able to form practical solutions to common problems that everyday people have. >> how would you describe your ideology and what or who influenced it? raja krishnamoorthi: my ideology is simple. how do we grow and strengthen the middle class? i want to be very practical about that.

i believe in helping working poor to climb the economic ladder into the middle class just as my family did, for people in the middle class to stay there if they wish, and for people who want to jump and take risks and create wealth and prosperity for the families and communities to be able to do that, too. i believe very much that america should lend a helping hand to those who want to help themselves, who are willing to work to better their families and their situations. so that's my ideology. but i'm very practical about how you go about achieving those ends. i don't pretend that i have the monopoly on the all the best ideas. i think there are a lot of good people in good faith on both sides of the aisle who can offer solutions to these problems. as i come here and enter the new congress, that is the attitude imd to the table. >> you're not new to politics.

you knew then senator barack obama. talk about your expense with him. i workedhnamoorthi: on his congressional campaign in 1999. that did not go as planned. in 2002, when he decided to run for the u.s. senate, he asked me to come aboard and i became his policy director, issues director. and the rest is history with him. but that really inspired me because, you know, i didn't know i didn't know if, you know, someone with my background and heritage and interesting name, you know, would be able to farewell electorally. and it turns out that the people of illinois are very good, decent, open-minded, forward thinking people. they are not going to just did an whole you or reject you came from or how many letters there are in your name. and so barack obama's campaign really inspired me to think

about elective politics. he himself inspired me to think about working families in a much more tangible and kind of concrete way. that influenced my attitude today obviously. >> have you been in contact? have you stayed in contact with the president? have you heard from him since you won this out seat? : it's funnymoorthi you say that. i have been in contact with him. he issued an endorsement of my campaign and then he followed up with a video message, which played a prominent role toward the end of my campaign. we cut it into an ad -- not an ad, but a video that was very popular on youtube. i'm just very proud to have his support. what are your plans for you and your family for this lifestyle of the harry in

washington three to four days a week and then going back to your district? raja krishnamoorthi: i have three young children. my wife and i have three and children, 11, seven, and a six-month-old baby girl. they are not going anywhere. ring circus will remain in schaumburg, illinois, which is where we live. and my wife has a very successful career there. so i will be commuting. i will be coming here and doing the people's business in then returning back home on the weekends and as often as i can to be with my family and also to meet with constituents. that's the lifestyle we are going to adopt. >> where do you plan to live here in washington? raja krishnamoorthi: good question. that's on the to do list, along with a number of other things. things wherehose logistics is kind of the last

issue i was thinking about as we were approaching election day. and now we have a high-class problem on her hands of camino, dealing with all those issues as well. >> do you get help with that from the folks here, from your party, from the staff here in washington for members of congress? raja krishnamoorthi rep.-elect. krishnamoorthi: with regard to housing and so forth? informally. that is not really part of the formal program or orientation program. i think they are more focused on like, how to be a member of congress and you know, how to vote and where is the capital and all of that stuff. but, we get informal advice here and there regarding this. >> any plans to maybe bunk with another member of congress? rep.-elect. krishnamoorthi: i think i have passed the time of having roommates at this point. i think i am probably a little too, you know, insistent on the way i live.

but, i have to think about what are the next steps there. >> what about committee assignments? where are you interested in serving? rep.-elect. krishnamoorthi: as i said, the people in my district so i will want to be on a committee where we will talk about economic development and jobs, primarily. so that is kind of the focus of my search for committee assignments right now. it is a very interesting process because there are a lot of moving parts and we're having a lot of conversations, protect -- productive ones and hopefully i will be in a position where i can actually help people at that and how do we grow the strength of the middle class. >> you are in washington for orientation meetings. what has surprised you so far? >> i think i am surprise, -- surprised although i should , not be, at how much in awe i still am when look up at the